


Nobody Sees What We See

by flashindie



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 14:13:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18624895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashindie/pseuds/flashindie
Summary: So maybe it’s not dates every night of the week, but they move in together and it feels like it. It feels like it because even when she’s working late or he is, when they’re studying, when they’re out with friends, there’s always a moment, at least. Always a moment where he touches her – her back, her neck, that spot, just above her knee, or he’s kissing her, or he’s holding her – her hand, her arm, her cheek. Always a moment that sparks the constant fire of them, the warmth, the hearth that grows between them -insidethem.-Ruby and Stan and snippets of life before 1.01.





	Nobody Sees What We See

This is the moment you know. 

It’s him, smiling, wide and toothy, his hand curled around your waist, and you are nineteen, twenty-four, thirty, forty. It doesn’t matter. What matters is him. What matters is him beside you, in step with you, the conversations you can have in the raise of an eyebrow or the flare of a nostril, the ones you have when he touches you, holds you, when he lets you go, the ways he pulls you close again. 

What matters is the way he never lets you get far, the way he always lets you speak, the way he _listens_. What matters are the special moments, the mundane moments, the doing-laundry-making-dinner moments, the our-daughter-might-die moments, the nonsense moments, the moments for the kids, the ones just for the two of you. 

There are a million moments you know.

*

“You _like_ him.”

And it’s Beth who says it, wide eyed and smiling, her hand draped over hers, and Ruby shushes her quick, waving her not-Beth-covered-hand out to try and suppress any chance of being overheard in the crowded school cafeteria. 

“You need to stop,” Ruby says, but Beth just laughs, leaning back in her seat, her long, strawberry blonde hair tumbling down her shoulders like some sort of Disney princess. Ruby resists the urge to roll her eyes. After all, it’s _kind of_ because of Beth that she even met him. And also she loves her or whatever? But that feels less important right now. 

“I can talk to Dean,” Beth says, grinning ear to ear. She lets go of Ruby’s hand just enough to gesture in an awkward, quasi stealthy way, and Ruby just stares at her. “I mean, they’re on the football team together, right?”

And sure, Ruby wants to say. But there are a lot of guys on the football team with Dean. 

And also Dean? 

He’s the worst.

She resists the urge to say it. 

“We haven’t even talked to each other before,” Ruby says instead, picking at her deeply uninspiring cafeteria lunch. “I just heard that he likes Run DMC, and you know I’m into that.” 

“And you think he’s cute,” Beth gushes, bright eyed, almost squirming in her seat with excitement, and Ruby levels her a flat stare which only makes Beth laugh all over again, and Beth laughing is almost a sure-fire way to make _Ruby_ laugh, and man. 

She grew up with multiple _brothers_. 

She should be better at that than this. 

“Fine,” Ruby says, once both her and Beth’s giggling has subsided. “I think he’s cute. But you know, half the girls in this school are ready to drop their pants for him and I’m just.” 

She gestures vaguely to herself, rolling her eyes, and Beth almost launches herself across the table in an effort to grab her hand again, clutching it close to her chest and saying:

“Just what? The _literal_ best, most beautiful, wonderful person in any room?” 

And Ruby just laughs, rolling her eyes. 

“Sit down,” she tells her, gently pushing Beth back, and then, at Beth’s too-earnest look. “ _Fine._ ”

And so maybe that’s how it starts.

*

She doesn’t know who Beth talks to, not really, but within the week, sometime between Math and Bio, Stanley Hill has tapped her on the shoulder in the middle of the hallway and asked her if she wants to see a movie sometime.

She has to swallow her heart to reply, and instead of _yes_ \- the _logical_ answer - she says, “Who put you up to this?” and he blinks, wide eyed at her, surprised. 

“What?” 

“You heard me.” 

He just stares at her for a minute, and Ruby shifts her weight awkwardly, clutching her Bio text book a little tighter to her chest, resisting the urge to shove her glasses up her nose. Because the thing is, Stanley Hill is one of the stars of their highschool football team already, even as a sophomore like her and Beth, a darling to the faculty, irresistibly chill and cool to the student body – popular and bright and athletic, and really, Ruby’s like, _smart_ , but she mouths off to the teachers, and she and Beth are usually benched in gym class (which, to be frank, is the way they tend to like it). 

She bites the inside of her cheek, chancing a look back up at him, and he hasn’t taken his eyes off her, his lips curved into a small frown, and it really would be great if the ground could swallow her whole, but apparently that _isn’t_ on the cards today. She can almost see all the responses filter across his face, and finally he settles on the last one she expects. 

“I’m asking you out,” he says with a shrug. “That’s all. It’s okay if you’re not into it. You don’t have to say yes. I just think you’re cute, and your presentation on _The Great Gatsby_ in English was funny and kind of badass.”

“I just think that maybe if Gatsby kept his dick in his pants and like, _respected_ the women in his life, he might not have gotten straight up murdered,” and she says it before she can stop herself, and to her surprise, Stan laughs, nodding. 

“Boy definitely deserved it. It’s the least romantic romance I’ve ever read.” 

“That’s the whole thing with old white writers though,” Ruby agrees, grin twisting at her lips. She gestures out vaguely between them. “ _The Sun Also Rises_ , _Wuthering Heights_ , _Romeo and Juliet_. It’s all whack. Just like, maybe have a conversation once in a while? Enjoy each other’s company? But nah, it’s all about like, _possessing_ each other and starting blood feuds.” 

“They have no chill at all,” Stan agrees, still laughing, and suddenly she can smell him a little, and realises that he’s stepped a little closer. Down the hall, she can see Sally Prichard death glaring her, and God, she wonders what they look like, and then she wonders why that matters. 

“Okay,” she says, after a second, and Stan blinks down at her. 

“Okay?” 

“Okay to the movie.” 

A grin splits wide across his face, and she’d be lying if she said she didn’t feel it, somewhere deep and soft in her chest

“Yeah?” 

“Don’t make me say it again.” 

“Well, okay. I’ll pick you up on Saturday?”

*

And it turns out four minutes in the school hallway is a lot harder to recreate in the passenger seat of his car, and so maybe it’s awkward. Maybe she asks him about football, like she knows anything about it, and he asks her how she went in Mr. Krandell’s math test, but then she asks about his family – two brothers, a dog he says he likes more than either of them, although there’s a twist to his grin that makes her think that’s a lie, and she tells him _snap_ because she has two brothers too, and then they’re bemoaning siblings, and talking about home (and not her dad, not yet, she can’t – not - -) and it carries them to the movie, where he holds her hand in the dark, and then to the carpark again, where he wonders about dinner.

“There’s a diner two blocks from here that does the best lasagne you’ve ever had,” he tells her, and she folds her arms across her chest to ward off the cold as she leans against the outside of his car. 

“You haven’t had my lasagne yet.” 

And he’s grinning, putting his car keys back in the pocket of his jacket when he looks over at her. “Is that an offer?” 

“Maybe,” she says. “But I should probably try my competition first.” 

Stan laughs like she’s funnier than she is, his tone almost musical in the dim night, and Ruby knocks her toes together and tries to hide her blush when he reaches out to grab her hand again, pulling her gently out of the carpark and leading her through the couple of streets towards the diner. 

Around them, the night is thick with traffic, the air damp enough she thinks it must’ve rained while they’d been in the movie. She can hear a couple of boys, older than them, caterwauling as they toss empty beer bottles off the bridge, down onto the road below, a girl, yelling at her boyfriend, a homeless woman humming old showtunes as she makes her bed in an abandoned shopfront. It’s not exactly high romance, but Stan’s hand is warm in her own, his body tall beside hers, and he’s just - - he’s _quiet_ \- - and she asks it before she can help herself. 

“So did Beth talk to you? I need to know for my sanity.” 

And Stan laughs, but it’s different to the other one, a little lower, a little smug, like maybe he was expecting the question. 

“I was already there,” Stan says, throwing up his free hand in surrender, and then, with a grin. “She _is_ the captain of your hype squad though.” 

Ruby groan-laughs, burying her face in her own free hand. 

“I am so sorry.” 

“Don’t apologise! It’s nice. _She’s_ nice,” and he hesitates briefly, forehead furrowing, his mouth doing something she doesn’t quite recognise (not _yet_ ), and Ruby feels a ripple of doubt run through her until he says: “Don’t really get her slummin’ it with Dean Boland.” 

And just like that, Ruby thinks she’s in love. 

“Oh my god, Stanley, _right_?” 

And he basically _giggles at her_. 

“Dean’s an asshole,” Stan tells her. 

Ruby glows, closing her eyes, gesturing widely out into the street, almost hitting a passing bystander. 

“Say it again,” and Stan laughs, nudging a little closer to her. 

“Dean’s an asshole,” he repeats, and Ruby laughs, tightening her grip on his hand.

*

It’s three dates before he kisses her, and more than she can count before he makes love to her at home, in her bed, her mother out and her brothers playing basketball with the neighbourhood kids in the street, and then it’s a year, then it’s two, and none of it matters and all of it does, because there’s not a second with him she’d want to lose. He’s gentle and he’s kind in a way she didn’t know men could be, even in her limited experience, and everything just seems to be easy.

And she figures there’s a deadline. She figures highschool romances are made for highschool, and she talks to Beth about it from the bleachers while they pretend to watch Stan play football, Dean over his shoulder – assistant coach now, since he’s already graduated – and Beth says, “Highschool sweethearts exist, Ruby. Just look at me and Dean,” and Beth might still believe in fairytales, but Ruby’s always been a realist, and she looks down to Dean blatantly checking out one of the junior cheerleaders, and then to Stan, smiling up at her.

*

But she tries it, three days before graduation, takes him back to that diner from their first date and they eat food that’s not as good as what she makes him and drink root beer floats and he keeps sitting on the edge of his seat so that he can bump knees with her below the table, and she tries to ignore the electric way that it lights up her leg and the fire it stoaks in her belly.

“Stan, we need to –” and she hasn’t even said anything, but he’s already shaking his head. 

“Nope,” he says, having a drink, and Ruby blinks. 

“Excuse me?” 

“Nope. Baby, I can read you like a book, and I’m going to have to tear this page out.” 

And Ruby just gives him a look at that, eyebrow raised. 

“Corny.” 

But he’s grinning across from her, finishing off his cheesecake, and pointing his free hand at her. 

“You like it. And the answer is no.” 

“You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”

“I do,” he disagrees. “You’re going to say we should break up because your mama told you some story about leaving childish things in childhood, and that highschool romances don’t last, and the answer to that is no. We should not break up. We should stay together. In fact, I think we should start dating _more_.”

“More?” Ruby says, arching an eyebrow, more annoyed than anything, and Stan hums, dropping his fork back to his plate, pushing it aside and threading his fingers together instead. 

“Yup. One date a week? No, let’s do seven. Every night of the week, baby. We don’t got school no more, what else are we going to do with all that free time?” 

“Try and find a job,” Ruby says dryly. “Start prep for college?” 

“Nup, dates,” Stan says. “I’m talkin’ movies, I’m talkin’ bowlin’, I’m talkin’ hot air balloon rides.” 

And she laughs at that, not able to stop herself, her nose wrinkling, her lips parted. 

“Boy, you can barely stand on the third rung of a ladder without your legs giving out.” 

“I like being around you,” he says it so suddenly, his tone so soft, that it stops her breath, her heart, just _her_. “I like it so much I spend the time I’m _not_ around you counting down the minutes until I get to be around you again.” 

He takes a deep breath. He gestures, to the space between them. 

“I don’t want to not be around you ever again.” 

And the diner is busy, loud with clutter, with the distant chatter of other couples, the clink of cutlery on china plates, the squeak of the waitress’s sneakers on the linoleum floors, but Ruby doesn’t hear any of it, doesn’t see any of it. She just watches him, watching her. 

“I’m in love with you,” Ruby says, and Stan just grins. 

“Yeah, boo, I know.”

*

So maybe it’s not dates every night of the week, but they move in together and it feels like it. It feels like it because even when she’s working late or he is, when they’re studying, when they’re out with friends, there’s always a moment, at least. Always a moment where he touches her – her back, her neck, that spot, just above her knee, or he’s kissing her, or he’s holding her – her hand, her arm, her cheek. Always a moment that sparks the constant fire of them, the warmth, the hearth that grows between them - _inside_ them.

And it’s a night like any other, his college text books open on the dining room table as she reads one of hers in the kitchen, stirring risotto for dinner, and they’re not even twenty, and she’s mumbling her Business 101 study notes under her breath and she looks up and he’s watching her in a way that makes her heart stutter. 

“Got something on my face?” she says, joking, like the love on his isn’t bare and naked and she sees it, the sharp inhale, the way he wets his lips. 

“I think we should get married.” 

And it’s simple and it’s not fussed, and it’s _them_ and she says, “Yeah?” 

And he says, “Yeah.” 

And that’s all there is to it.

*

And maybe their parents think they’re too young. Maybe her brothers do too. Maybe they stand over Stan’s shoulder to try to intimidate him or talk him down or _something_ , but they’ve always gotten along and it’s only fifteen minutes if that until Stan has them laughing and rough housing in the backyard, her eldest brother yelling “Ruby’s gettin’ _married_ ,” at the top of his lungs, like there’s anyone on this street who doesn’t know.

And she gets her mother to walk her down the aisle, despite her protests that it should be her grandfather, because Ruby doesn’t need any man to give her away. But still, she misses her dad, and she cries when she realises that Beth has put a framed photo of him on the table beside the wedding cake, so everyone knows he’s there, and cries all the more when Stan tells her that they resized her parents wedding rings, just for them. 

Beth gives a maid of honour speech that leaves the whole room misty-eyed and Annie, only ten, sweet and fluffy in her flower girl dress only knocks two of the catering platters onto the floor, which is really a lot better than Ruby had ever expected. 

And she just can’t stop _kissing_ him, no matter how much she reminds herself nothing has really changed. The second they said _I do_ it had felt like everything had. 

They can’t afford a honeymoon, but everyone pools enough of their money to get them a honeymoon suite for a night at one of the nicer hotels in town, and they’re still half drunk on each other, stumbling through the doors, collapsing onto the bed and Ruby’s kissing him again before he can catch his breath.

“We did it,” Ruby breathes into his mouth, her eyes half-lidded, her chest fit to burst. “We’re married.” 

“We’re married,” Stan echoes, his eyes half-lidded, his lips split into the biggest grin she thinks she’s ever seen. “Ruby Hill.” 

He says it almost reverently, her name – her _new_ name, and Ruby shudders, feels something hot swell low and deep in her.

“It’s on paper now,” he tells her. “We belong to each other.” 

“Yeah,” she says with a laugh, her hands finding his chest, always, forever, smoothing down his front. “I mean –”

“I think I did the second I met you,” Stan continues, cutting her off, and Ruby stares at him, bites her lip, and closes her eyes. 

“One day I’ll get you to stop saying stuff like that,” she tells him dryly, pushing him down onto his back and straddling his hips, bunching her wedding dress up around her thighs. She reaches down to undo his tie, to start unbuttoning his shirt. He smiles blindingly up at her. 

“Nah, boo, you won’t.”

*

And so they’re married, and life carries on, but life also _works_. They keep studying, they graduate, they work. They host parties and barbeques and go to too many of them, throw baby showers for in-laws, bucks nights for his boys, and Ruby tries her best to be enthusiastic when Beth flashes her Dean’s grandmother’s ring, but only talks about Beth in her speech at their wedding, and spends most of that night running interference on Mama Marks.

And she finds out she’s pregnant one night in the spring, Stan sitting on the floor of the bathroom beside her as they wait for the stick to change, and there are tears in the corner of her eyes, and she looks over and there are tears in the corners of his too, and _oh_ , Ruby thinks.

“We’re a family,” she says.

*

“Let me count her toes again.”

“You’ve already counted her toes three times,” Ruby says, laughing, Stan’s arm still curled behind her back, his body squished into the hospital bed beside her. With his free hand, he reaches over to Sara, still held and fast asleep in the cradle of Ruby’s arms. 

“Maybe I miscounted,” Stan replies, tugging Sara’s feet out of the bottom of the blanket. “You know math was never my best subject.” 

“Right,” Ruby says, agreeing, watching as Stan makes gentle, awed work of cupping their daughter’s little foot. “How many times did you have to resit Mrs. Townsend’s junior final?” 

“Only once,” he says with a grin. “But I was lucky to have an amazing girlfriend to get me through it with a _pretty_ great rewards system.” 

She laughs, turning away from him to look down at Sara in her arms. She still can’t believe it. Or she can – if nothing else, the dull throb in the lower half of her body and the bone-numbing exhaustion of every half of it leaves no illusions as to storks or strangers. This little thing is hers. Or, she blinks softly at Stan, still holding Sara’s feet. 

_Theirs_. 

“She’s beautiful,” he says. “And she looks smart.” 

Ruby laughs, rolling her eyes. 

“She is not even an hour old, Stanley.” 

“I know these things, woman. I know who she is. She looks just like you.” 

Ruby just looks at him, and he hums, bracketing Ruby’s arm with his own. 

“Beautiful and smart and funny and strong. Hell. How could she not be?” 

And Ruby blinks, and when she looks at Stan this time, he’s looking straight at her, and _oh_ , she thinks, blinking through tears. 

“You are,” she says, tone accusatory, but he is, she just doesn’t know how to say it like he does without sounding ridiculous, and he laughs, leaning in softly to kiss her. He pulls away, but not far, his breath still warm against her lips. 

“Still ten?” she asks, and Stan blinks, putting on a thoughtful face.

“I don’t know, let me count them again.”

*

It’s perfect until it’s not.

It’s perfect until she’s _sick_. 

Until doctors are talking about tests, and then more tests, and then about treatments and strategies and plans and – and – _transplants_ , and when it’s not Stan there beside her, it’s Beth, swollen with her own pregnancy, but steady and firm beside her, her grip tight in Ruby’s hand, and it’s - - it’s a diagnosis.

And then everything changes.

So life becomes this: 

Life becomes doctor’s appointments and checking oxygen tank readings and knowing emergency room nurses by name. It becomes quitting her admin job at the office because the pay is fine, but the hours immovable, and so she’s waiting tables again, and Stan is working mall security, and they’re better than both, but that’s not what life is anymore. Life is about Sara, about Sara’s life, about keeping it _going_ , keeping this slice of magic in the world that Ruby has no idea how she managed to grow inside her, because Stan is wrong, Sara isn’t like her, or she is, but she’s like him too, and somehow - - somehow already she is something so entirely her own, and god. 

Ruby can’t ever lose her.

*

Somewhere in all of that, between appointments and toilet training and graveyard shifts at dead-end jobs, Ruby finds out she’s pregnant again.

“ _Stanley_ ,” she says, eyebrows high up on her forehead as Stan curls his hand around her ass, pushing their hips together, his grin so wide it splits his face in two. 

“You’re already pregnant, boo,” and it should be enough to make her push him away, but he’s cheeky enough, charming enough, she can’t (can never), and then her arms are around his neck, pulling him closer.

“She’s sick,” she breathes into the skin there, eyes quivering shut. “What if this one is too?” 

Stan strokes her cheek, gently pushing on her chin, just to get her face out of his neck enough to kiss her, quick and soft. 

“So we figure it out,” Stan tells her, breathes into her mouth. “Baby, anything that’s even a little bit of you? That’s something worth keeping. The world needs more of you, in any scrape. And I figure it’s my number one job as husband to make sure I get that out there.” 

Ruby just laughs, looks at him. 

“Well, you made that sound gross.” 

He wiggles his eyebrows, his hands tightening against her ass, pulling her closer. 

“Yeah? Tell that to the beautiful human we already made.” 

His hands find her belly, and touch her, too gentle, impossibly gentle. 

“Tell that to this one.”

*

“I don’t even really like her, you know, she’s just someone we went to school with,” Ruby says, slipping the wedding invitation below a magnet on the fridge, watching Stan try to entice Sara’s frowning little face with a spoonful of mac and cheese. “Baby girl, you’ve got to eat something.”

Sara shakes her head, folding her arms across her chest and looking steadfastly away from them. Ruby rolls her eyes, but can’t help the thread of grief in her belly. The new meds have demolished her appetite, sallowed her skin, left her tired and too thin, and - - Ruby shudders on her next inhale. 

“I can make you a sandwich instead?” she tries, but Sara just shakes her head again.

“I don’t feel good,” she mumbles, and Ruby sighs, watching as Stan drops the spoonful of mac and cheese. 

“Okay, well, how about we watch some _Sailor Moon_ and then we see if we feel any hungrier?” 

And it’s the first smile they’ve gotten out of her today as they watch her slide excitedly off the dining room chair and trundle off into the living room, dragging her oxygen tank behind her. Ruby looks over at Stan, who just collapses back, exhausted into his chair, his gaze fixed up on Ruby. 

“It’ll be a fun night,” he tells her, slipping easily back into their conversation. “And Beth’s going too, isn’t she? You guys haven’t had a real girl’s night in months.” 

And they have, just not a girl’s night that hasn’t ended in Beth staring vacantly out the window, or curled up in bed, chest heaving, eyes clenched shut as tears stick to her eyelashes, her little people playing in the room over, Dean nowhere to be found. Ruby bites the inside of her cheek. 

“Go,” Stan says, sliding up from the table, leaning in to kiss her. “I’ve got the home front. You go and have fun.” 

And they do for a while. The wedding is sweet – open aired under a canopy, the bride in a simple white shift dress while the groom looks about as goofy as a groom can in a powder-blue suit with a darker satin collar. The ceremony is just a little long, and the reception fine, made better for the open bar, or at least, made better for Beth by the open bar. She’d pumped enough milk to give herself the night and next day off, and made quick work of downing more than a few glasses of the free champagne. Ruby, still pregnant, couldn’t do much more than ply her with water every couple of drinks, and let Beth lead her out onto the dance floor, curling her arms around Ruby’s neck and hiccupping into her shoulder. 

“I love your love,” Beth whispers against her skin, and lets out such a guttural sob that Ruby holds her close, closer, until she feels like she can pull Beth beneath her skin, keep her safe, keep her warm. 

And those words echo in her head when she drops Beth home, helping her into bed as Dean watches football on the sofa in the living room, and they echo on the drive home, and they echo when she sees Stan in her bed, and they echo when she kisses him, hard, and he’s grinning against her mouth, and she pushes him onto his side, curling her body against his front, hooking a leg over his and rocking her pelvis against his, and he’s looking at her like she’s Christmas, and _God_ , there are a lot of ways she’s been unlucky, but this isn’t it. 

“I mean,” he says, smiling wide. “I’ve seen _Wedding Crashers_ , but I never believed it, you know?” 

Ruby rolls her eyes. 

“Please don’t talk about that terrible movie ever again.” 

He laughs, cupping a hand around the back of her neck, bringing her in for a kiss. His lips impossibly soft, familiar as home.

“Thank you,” she whispers into his mouth.

“For what?” 

“For loving me. For being you.” 

And she knows he understands, knows that he _knows_ , and she’s grateful in a way she can’t name for the twist in his look, the naked love, and the grief for Beth, the empathy he shows her other soul mate, the knowingness, that what they have is theirs, and it’s precious, but not fragile. 

Nothing could break this thing between them.

*

And only maybe this, she thinks, later, but not much, colouring the tip of Harry’s toy gun black, Beth and Annie beside her. The seed of dread is buried deep in her gut, and she knows it’ll sprout, knows that it’ll bloom, but can’t imagine yet the ways it will spore.

But she’s doing it _for_ him, she reminds herself, for them – for Stan, for her family, for Beth and Annie too. She’s doing it for all the little reasons and the big ones too. They’ll rob the store, and her daughter will live, and Stan and her will grow old watching her grow up, watching her fall in love, watching her go to college, get married if she wants to, and never, ever letting her do the things that Ruby has had to do for them. 

Because maybe she doesn’t always have the words like Stan does, but this?

For him, this she can do.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Beyonce's XO


End file.
